The suit covers the whole body except the face, the hands and the feet, whilst being light enough to enable swimming. The Quran admonishes Muslim women to dress modestly and cover their breasts and genitals.[2]

It looks rather like a full-length wetsuit with built-in hood, but somewhat looser and made of swimsuit material instead of neoprene.[3]

In August 2009, a woman in France was prevented from swimming in a public pool wearing a burkini.[4] This was due to a long-standing law requiring swimwear in place of street clothing in public pools, for hygienic reasons, rather than the result of any specific political position on the garment, despite controversy in France over Islamic dress.[5]

There are other styles of Islamic swimwear such as the veilkini and mycozzie which was the actual garment worn in the France incident.[7] Aheda Zanetti criticized the mycozzie suit, claiming it used lycra and was unsafe. This was disputed by the designer of the mycozzie swimsuit.[8]